It Is You
by Lanceeselhombre
Summary: "Why won't you tell us?" The red paladin whispers, head and ears low in quivering despair. "He won't love me back anyways." The words rasp past his torn throat and cracked lips, strangled and defeated and completely lifeless.


**Disclaimer: I own nothing.**

.o.O.o.

 _The Hanahaki Disease is an illness born from one-sided love, where the patient throws up and coughs of flower petals when they suffer from one-sided love. The infection can be removed through surgery, but the feelings disappear along with the petals._

Except, in space, there is no surgery for hanaheki disease. Hanaheki is exclusive to humans, there is no need for Altean technology to be able to remove thorns and roses from a person's lungs. In an intergalactic war, no one would expect one of the paladins of Voltron to contract such a disease anyway, so the topic of its existence never got brought up.

That was, until the blue paladin did.

Now he lays on a medical bed in the castle of lions, frail and weak. He's barely awake, barely breathing. Blood and blood red roses paint his mouth, his lips, his cheeks. Thorns and rose vines have almost completely consumed his lungs, crushing his organs like grapes, their juices being squeezed out of them and the air with them, slowly and painfully sapping the life from the blue paladin of Voltron.

The team sits by his beside, painfully aware of their inability to cure him. It is too late for him, not even reciprocated love can unwind the vines that have taken root in his chest. All they can do is sit by and watch as the life slowly leaves their friend's eyes. It's a painful job, it's a job no one wants. They shouldn't have to watch their teammate suffer so horrifically.

Keith is closest to him, sitting at the head of the bed in Shiro's place. He gently holds his teammate's hand in his own, the teen's fingers cold, clammy, and blue in his warm purple ones. They're still, stiff, unusable because of impending asphyxiation. Only his face is warm, soft, moveable. It's that way simply because of the warm crimson liquid painting his cheeks. The warmth is enough to let his features contort in agony, ugly and despaired.

"Why won't you tell us?" The red paladin whispers, head and ears low in quivering despair. Hot tears slip down his cheeks, flowing endlessly, unlike those of his teammate which have run horribly dry. His lips are speckled with the same liquid that covers his friend's cheeks, starkly define against the light lavender of his skin. Roses are clenching in his chest too, vainly attempting to suck the air out of his lungs as well. They'll never succeed, a Galra cannot concede to the constricting vines.

Lance watches the blank ceiling with unwavering eyes, ocean blue frosting and growing cold. He blinks, slow and heavy, and spares his teammate a sideways glance. Indigo and violet mix in a warm collage of color, and blue softens into something more fluid than ice. "He won't love me back anyways." The words rasp past his torn throat and cracked lips, strangled and defeated and completely lifeless.

Rose petals fly into his mouth with a rough, weak cough. More and more petals follow them until a full rose, fully bloomed and beautiful blood red joins them. Blue eyes close in a tense relax and struggling wheezes fill the silence. Quiet smothers the rugged sound, deep, oppressive, eager for death.

Gentle claws pluck out the rose and its petals, gently dropping their mass into their own bag of red. They linger at the broken lips of the frail teen, warm and soft on cool and brittle. Red paints them too, hideously vivid and thick sticky crimson.

It is quiet, silent, still in the wake of impending loss. It is stagnant with respect for the almost dead. None move, none speak.

A breath, stronger than the others.

"It is you." Three words, whispered low and loving. Three words shatter the silence with followed grieved cries and broken sobs. Three words, and ice blue eyes open to melting violet, hot and messy and full of sadness. Three words end the struggle and suddenly there is nothing but cold, frozen ice.

Warm fur covers rapidly cooling skin and burning hot tears streak down a still chest. A warm heart thuds hard and heavy against a quiet and nonexistent rhythm and warm lungs breathe for those that don't. Fluffy, pinned back, depressed ears rub against stiff cheeks, matting in disgusting clumps with drying blood.

Rugged, frantic, broken purrs rush to shove away the silence, loud and out of place with their accompanying sobs. "It's you too!" Words squeak past quivering lips, competing with heart broken purrs and defeated sobs to be heard. They slip by fast, unheard by deaf ears.

A tongue, hot, wet, and barbed drags across scarlet skin, at first spreading color, then cleaning it away. The skin underneath is white, lifeless, but better than red. Nothing is left behind by the thick, hot wetness that clears away painted on red, and soon the blue paladin's skin is a blank white canvas.

The tongue disappears back inside its prison, carrying the sickeningly sweet taste of iron with it. The taste of blood permeates the walls of the Galra's mouth, sticking to every surface like a second skin that will never fade. It's smell fills the hybrid's nose, tainting the pleasantly salty scent of ocean spray cologne and turning it sour.

The red paladin pulls back, staring into lifeless icy blue glaciers that haven't crumbled. He stares and stares, desperately wishing to melt them with his own promising heat. Hot, molten tears pour from violet eyes, staining skin where crimson has been cleaned away. No amount of heat can melt the ice.

A small hand, shaking and pale pushes cold eyes closed. A soft smile, small and delicate spreads across the girl's face in hopeless attempted comfort. "Look, he's sleeping." She whispers, her voice wobbling and tattered by the loss of her best friend.

Violet eyes close as well, wishing to join blue in the darkness that follows. One last drag of a tongue warms the cheek of the blue paladin and soft ears rest against a cold throat.

 _Maybe when you wake up, we'll meet again. And things will be different._

 _In the next life._


End file.
